April 30, 2010

Have you taken the “No Phone Zone” pledge and promised to do your part to help end the dangerous practice of distracted driving?

If not, now’s your chance. Join the thousands of others who have already agreed to put their phones down and their heads up when behind the wheel in honor of National “No Phone Zone” Day, Friday, April 30. Led by Oprah Winfrey and transportation safety organizations from around the country, today is the day you pledge to keep yourself, your family and others safe on the road by making your car a “no phone zone,” free of the distractions often caused by an incoming call or text.

At kajeet, we acknowledge – and encourage – safe, responsible cell phone use every day. It’s the reason why we give every kajeet customer free, unlimited parental controls that can be customized to suit your family’s needs. Want to manage your kid’s phone so that calls can’t be made or text messages sent during school hours? Use TimeManager to make the phone off-limits for the time block you choose. Prefer that only specific phone numbers can call (or be called from) your kid’s phone? Use ContactManager to designate which ones these are and block all others. Want to know that your kid arrived at his or her destination as scheduled? Use GPS Phone Locator to confirm. These tools are just a few of the many that have helped establish kajeet as the safest cell phone service for kids. (Want another? Download our free parent-kid cell phone use contract here).

Did you take the pledge? What cell phone rules have you put in place for when your kid is driving?

April 21, 2010

Looking for a way to keep your tween reading when school’s out for summer? Turn to Lucy B. Parker for some help!

Just released from Puffin Books, Yours Truly: Lucy B. Parker is the story of a teen whose life is turned upside down when she becomes the stepsister of the most famous girl in the world. Written by Robin Palmer, you can learn more about Lucy and her adventures here.

And to celebrate the launch of Lucy and her story, we’re giving away free wallpapers on your kajeet handset! You can find them on the Navigator, along with Lucy B. Parker middle school survival tips. Make sure you check them out!

April 9, 2010

by Daniel Neal

We take great pride at kajeet in having created the best, safest cell phone service for kids™. Normally, we point out that we have free, unlimited parental controls and monitoring, kid-appropriate content, 4 awards from parent organizations, our GPS Phone Locator service…that sort of thing.

But we’ve kept some other things in mind, too. The high cost of living. The high cost of cell phones. The high cost of having kids (I have 2).

The average cost of a contract-based cell phone service in the U.S. is more than $56.00/month. And data-intensive smartphones cost significantly more. That so-called extra “family plan” line you’re considering adding? Analysis done by iGR Research found that the average cost of a “family plan” line is over $44.00/month, and the additional cost of an extra line for a child is over $35.00/month when all costs are considered.

Oh, and with that “family plan,” you can’t turn off the bills when your child goes to camp for the summer… (yes, you can do that with a contract-free kajeet phone).

But money is tight. And the strain on American household budgets is why many people are turning to prepaid (or “contract-free”) cell phone services. You can find an article from ABC News about that trend here.

We’ve been hearing from parents about the need to spend less on cell phones for their children for a long time. So here’s how we’ve responded. Kajeet offers contract-free plans that have:

Allow me to crow a bit about my favorite kajeet contract-free plan: $14.99/month for unlimited text and 60 minutes of voice. This is what I bought for each of my own 2 kids (I also subscribe to our GPS Phone Locator for $9.99/month, but that’s optional).

Here’s what I get:affordable service, no surprises and very happy kids.

So long as I have the ability to keep them from texting at school and during bedtime (using my FREE parental controls!), they can text to their heart’s content. That’s what kids do. The 60 minutes of talk are more than enough for the few phone calls they make to tell me they’re ready to get picked up and for me to call and check in. They just don’t talk much. They text. And guess who texts a lot more now? Yup – Mr. Old School.

That $14.99/month plan strikes me as a pretty sweet deal. How sweet? It’s a savings of $240 per year per kid over that so-called “family plan” add-a-line.

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